


Child's Play

by ProbiePondKenobi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Swimming Pools, young!Sherlock, young!john, young!mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1933755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbiePondKenobi/pseuds/ProbiePondKenobi





	Child's Play

     For all of his smarts, Mycroft could not figure out why his mother had insisted he watch his little brother and the neighbor's kid as they played in the kiddie pool she had set up in their front lawn. John was eight, by far old enough to take care of 4-year-old Sherlock as he splashed happily in the eight inches of water that filled the tiny pool. He had said the same to her and added that at eleven he had much better things to do with his time, but she had given him that look that he knew better than to argue. So here he sat, burning in the hot summer sun with nothing to occupy his mind.

     John, however, seemed more than happy to entertain the preschooler. Mycroft wondered if it was his brother's advanced cognitive development and verbal abilities that had drawn the neighbor boy to Sherlock, or if John simply had a soft spot for bratty kids with dark curly hair and blue-green eyes.       

     Whatever had brought the two together, they had become nearly inseparable; and Mycroft had to admit that John was really good at handling Sherlock, keeping him busy and engaged even though the child's intellect greatly decreased his attention span. John never seemed out of new ideas or ways to bring Sherlock's interests back to what they were doing. 

     Mycroft suppressed a smile when Sherlock smacked his arms into the water and sent a wave of water at John. The light-haired boy giggled and sent a well aimed splash back at him. Sherlock's face grew serious, his little eyebrows drawing together and Mycroft couldn't help but laugh as his brother very sincerely began instructing John on the proper techniques for splashing in a pool of this size.

     "John, splashin' like that makes more water go out of the pool than splashin' like me.” Mycroft watched with amusement as John smiled down at Sherlock, John's look much gentler than his own would have been.

     "But 'Lock, which makes a better splash?’

     It was impossible for Mycroft to hold back a bark of laughter when, after a brief moment of contemplation, each boy sent a spray of water across the pool as the other had previously. The waves collided and sent a great deal of water spilling over the edges of the pool and onto each other.

      No one moved for a long moment, but then Sherlock's stern expression broke into a grin and a giggle escaped him. John laughed and gently tackled the four-year-old, swooping Sherlock into his arms and holding him as high as he can before splashing them both back into the water. Sherlock shrieked his pleasure in the obnoxious childlike way of his. Mycroft felt a smile stretching his lips and before he realized what he was doing he had pulled off his shirt and was joining the other boys in the shallow pool.

     For all his smarts, Mycroft was still a kid and the fun his brother was having was too temping for even him to resist. 

 

 


End file.
